War Stories
by cogitari
Summary: In the end, war heroes are, too, only humans. Inspired by Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.
1. courage

Though his old writing desk, fifteen years after he first received it, was now scratched, its ebony wood losing its luster, Neville still saw its now lost grandeur when he sat at it. Perhaps this was because he did not see the rough, scratched wood of the writing desk or the chipped legs, but rather the words that he had written while sitting there. How many letters had he written while sitting at this desk? More importantly, how many letters had he failed to write while sitting at this desk—how many letters had he started and stopped?

When he looked at the writing desk, memories flashed across his eyes. He remembered nights where his quill seemed to have a mind of its own, where he wrote as fast as he could, his handwriting rushed and messy; on these nights, he wrote forcefully, as if trying to engrave his words permanently into the wood beneath the scroll. Those nights, he was bleeding words, letting all of his secrets and stories spill out on the page; he always went to bed with the feeling of being lighter he had been in the morning, as if by writing, he had taken some of the weight on his shoulders off.

He also remembered nights where he could only sit and stare at that infinite blankness before him, bathed in yellow by the candlelight, with nothing to accompany him but his wife soft's breathing a few feet beside him and the deafening silence of the words that would not come to him; in these moments, he'd stare at his quill, as if trying to will it to find those words for him. Those nights, Neville would stare at the page and see flashes of all the stories he could not and would not tell.

Most painfully, though, were the nights where the words did come to him and he _did_ write pages and pages, but at second glance, noticed only the pain and confusion in his words, his tone jumpy and desperate; his words were jumbled and inadequate, not enough to tell his stories and secrets. On these nights, he threw those pages into the fire, finding that words were not enough to silence the voice that echoed in the back of his mind, incessantly repeating his mistakes to him.

Tonight was a rare night where he could taste the words he wanted to write on his tongue, feel them at his fingertips, hear them in his ears. The blank scroll of paper sitting on his desk beckoned him expectantly. But when he picked up his quill to start writing, he hesitated; he could see the words he wanted to say before him, but there was a gap between his words and his fingers. The words simply wouldn't appear on the page, and if they did, they appeared mangled. The tight ball in his throat made it impossible for him to start writing.

Neville picked up the quill, finding that it felt heavier than it had felt before, and bent over the sheet of the paper, his inked quill hovering over the top of the paper. How did he start? _Dear Seamus?_ Was he even allowed to say _Dear_ anymore? The voice in the back of his mind snidely denied him this right, but Neville hesitantly wrote this anyway, finding there was no other way to start.

But how to continue? Skipping to the next line, he started: _I'm_ —and stopped. What came next? What word would be enough? Hundreds came to mind. _Sorry?_ Too generic and insincere—he could use sorry for having accidentally stepped on his foot two weeks ago and for this, the crime that kept him awake at night. _Regretful?_ No, this would be inaccurate. The regret had evaporated long ago, leaving a bitter bile, a tangle of emotions that he had no name for./p  
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(Perhaps that was why he was trying to write this letter in the first place, his words the forceps with which he would carefully untangle this knot that had been resting in his stomach for the past fifteen years).

 _Stupid?_

Neville laughed shortly. That would certainly be fitting—and he could imagine Seamus laughing and agreeing, "This bloke—always stating the obvious, huh?

Perhaps he could start the same way that he started the stories he told to his children, when they sat at the foot of his bed, faces bright with anticipation and curiosity, almost tripping over themselves; they'd fight with one another to sit on their father's lap as he told them another story. "Tell us about the time you killed Voldemort's snake!" his son Frank would insist without fail even though he'd heard the story perhaps fifty times now. Alice, his daughter, would instantly shoot her brother a glare—Frank may not have tired of the story about Nagini but Alice definitely had—and demand, "No! Tell us about how you broke into the Department of Mysteries!" They wanted to hear of all the times he was so brave—their father, the courageous wielder of the Sword of Gryffindor.

How did those stories start? Right.

"Alice, Frank, this is the story of the time I was in a secret society with Harry Potter."

 _How would this story start?_

 _Alice, Frank, this is the story of the time I was an utter coward and Crucioed my own friend._

Neville did not remember the exact details anymore; after fifteen years of guilt-induced suppression, he had forgotten most of the details, but the feelings the memory evoked were as clear as if it had happened yesterday. He recalled vaguely that it had happened in the beginning of his seventh year, when there seemed to be a dark veil upon Hogwarts and he had been looking over his shoulder constantly. He remembered that before it happened, he'd been talking to Seamus, rounding the corner to go to class—Dark Arts class, he recalled, because he'd grimaced at the thought. What stuck with Neville, even after fifteen years, were the screams—starting with the little Hufflepuff girl's scream when that smarmy git Amycus's hand wrapped around her collar, dragging her to him. What had she done to provoke him, to deserve his punishment? Neville couldn't remember. It could've been something as simple as her uttering a sound when she wasn't supposed to, or wearing her hair in a certain way, or perhaps it wasn't even something she was doing, just that that bastard was bored.

Either way, anger flooded forward and his fists tightened. Red had flashed across his eyes. What he remembered of his anger most was the way that his skin seemed to buzz; he felt tense all over. Seamus later called him a cat with his hackles raised—Neville realized that Seamus just wanted to use the alternative, less respectful term for a cat. (This was another thing that had changed; everyone had become vulgar. It was war—no one had the luxury anymore to be politically correct). Neville shouted, a sound that seemed like a scream of anger, tinged with desperation and frustration, "No! I won't let you!"

His children would be impressed hearing this. "Go, Papa! You tell that bastard!" Alice would exclaim with pride, grinning even as her father would shoot her an admonishing look for using a curse word. Frank would, for once, agree with his sister, nodding and gazing up at his father with awe, respect, and admiration. _I want to be like him when I grow up,_ he would think. _Brave, like a warrior._

 _Warrior?_ Seamus would snort derisively and say that he was more of a jackass than a warrior.

Neville gripped his quill tighter. Perhaps that was the right thing to say. _Dear Seamus, I'm a jackass. Signed, Neville._

That pretty much summed up exactly what he was trying to say.

But in saying this, he would be omitting the story and the explanation, which meant he wouldn't be able to get forgiveness. (Though, perhaps, that was better; maybe he wasn't all that deserving of forgiveness).

Neville remembered Seamus jumping up right after he protested the Hufflepuff girl being taken away; Seamus had screamed too, something that he didn't remember—all of his blood had been rushing to his ears, his fury a dull roar; it had probably been something like "Neville you fucking _idiot_ , _sit down!_ "—and a wide smirk had spread across Amycus's face. Then, what had stuck out to Neville was the strangeness of that smile, how the bastard's too-white teeth didn't fit into his pale face and seemed like the teeth of a canine. Amycus drawled something indubitably sleazy—Neville remembered his fists clenching even tighter—and released the Hufflepuff girl's collar.

Fifteen years later, Neville still remembered his exact words that followed: "Would you like to volunteer, Longbottom? Or perhaps, you'd like to volunteer your parents—I know they good at handling the Cruciatus Curse."

Neville had never before believed that words could induce a physical reaction, like something stabbing him in the knee, but he recalled jerking upright as if Amycus had cast Incarcerous. Those words brought memories of his parents' screams, or what he imagined they were like when he thought about them in the middle of the night, or sitting in the Great Hall, waiting for a letter that would never arrive. He heard the shrill sound, imagined their pale faces, tightened with pain but concentration, expressing their strength and stubbornness. Their pain rushed through his bones, followed by surge of anger that made him step forward; suddenly, all he wanted was to hear Amycus scream as loud as he could. He wanted to hear that blood-curdling, anguished sound; he wanted to hear Amycus _beg_ , to seek mercy, to be brought to his knees.

Seamus had probably grabbed his arms and restrained him; Neville could only remember how Amycus's smirk had widened at his reaction, and how he had wanted nothing more than to slam his fist into the Death Eather's face and break that goddamn smirk.

Neville could imagine what his children would say about all this. Alice's face would redden and she would shout heatedly, "No one insults our family!" She would insist that they find some way to jump back in time so she could attack Amycus—"you hold him down and I'll punch him, okay? We'll even bring Uncle Seamus with us!"

Frank wouldn't react as violently as his sister but would stiffen just like his father. He would furrow his eyebrows, his generally kind brown eyes would turn steely. "That man is awful," he would say quietly, an alarming statement from the boy who refused to insult anyone, who strived to be as kind as possible.

Seamus might agree with both of his children, but he would shake his head at Neville. "You shoulda walked away then and there," he would chastise, dark eyes holding a knowing glint and an unplaceable emotion—too dull, cold to be anger, but too sharp and steely to be affection. Neville felt like hitting himself upside the head for not listening to Seamus; it was something that few realized, but it was often wise to listen to Seamus.

(Even if he did have a dangerous proclivity for blowing things up. Perhaps that was what Neville should write. _Dear Seamus, I'll always listen to you now—even if it means that my head will explode in the process. Signed, Neville._ Seamus would certainly find the thought of Neville's head exploding an agreeable one).

Aside from the anger, Neville also felt a tightening in his throat at the thought of being under the Cruciatus Curse. He didn't know why; perhaps it was because that thought brought the image of his parents, and the image of him beside his parents in the Spell Damage Ward. His mind permanently damaged, unable to recognize his own face. Babbling nonsense. It induced a sort of paralyzing fear that made Neville tense up more—Seamus had probably mistaken that for anger, and Neville wished to Merlin that it was anger, because at least that would mean he wasn't some weakling, afraid that he hadn't inherited his parents' willpower and strength.

He recalled the sweet but sickening relief that coursed through him when Amycus drawled, "I'll spare you, Longbottom." Even now, fifteen years later, it made him hide his reddening face, made him feel guilty like he'd been caught committing the worst crime. He was a Gryffindor, for Merlin's sakes—the son of two members of the Order, brave and strong. His shame still enveloped now him, combining with the guilt and the memories of Seamus's hoarse screams to force him awake in the middle of the night, his heart pounding, sweat on his face; he scratched at his skin, as if trying to peel off the shame and guilt covering his skin, burning him and strangling his throat. He took loud wheezing breaths, gaze darting around the room wildly. Those nights, he was forced to repeat assurances to himself, to quell the guilt swelling inside him, to force down the shame that was strangling his throat. _You are Neville. Son of Alice and Frank. Wielder of the Sword of Gryffindor. Brave Neville._

None of it helped, because those assurances that he clung to so tightly where nothing but lies.

It felt disgraceful to repeat them to himself, when he remembered the cool heavenly relief, like the taste of honey on his tongue, that coursed through him when Amycus had decided to spare him—and felt even more disgraceful when he recalled what Amycus had said next: "Finnegan. You're up, then." Neville remembered the taste of bile on his tongue, the sickening feeling coursing through his body, bringing a bitter edge to his sweet relief. He remembered the shame he felt, the taste of self-disgust then, mixing with his anger—it all combined with the overpowering feeling of shock.

Neville imagined Alice blanching at hearing this, the fury in her sweet voice, "Not Uncle Seamus! You saved Uncle Seamus, right, Papa?" Frank would look at him with wide and expectant eyes, with the clear confidence of a boy who believed his father, his idol, could not err.

Fifteen years later, Neville swallowed thickly, thinking about how he would have to shake his head and say, _no, darling, I didn't do anything._ He had opened his mouth to protest but no words had come—all he could think of was that paralyzing image of him lying on the bed beside his parents and the maddening whiteness of the walls in the Spell Damage Ward and his horribly inappropriate thought: _I don't like hospital food._ A controlling fear had locked his limbs and vocal chords together, and sucked up all his courage and anger; it prevented him from making a move.

He also remembered, vividly, the expression on Seamus's face. The Irishman was too proud to show fear, but there had been a vulnerability in his eyes; thinking of it now, Neville tried to imagine what Seamus had been thinking about, what image kept flashing before his eyes, making him freeze with fear. Perhaps that was what he should write in his letter. _Dear Seamus, I'm curious about what you were thinking about then. It's haunted me for the past fifteen years. Signed, Neville._ Perhaps it would be better for him not to say anything, but to allow Seamus to say all he needed to. This way he would not have to draw out memories he had tried to keep suppressed.

Memories of Amycus's nasally voice making another suggestion, slyly stated with a sadistic smirk on his face—"I think I've had enough practice with the Cruciatus Curse… Longbottom. Why don't you try?" He remembered his brain shouting, _Say no, you fucking idiot—turn your wand on that bastard, or if you can't do that, on yourself! Your parents would want you to be loyal._ But he remembered the image of himself lying next to his parents flashing in his brain and _I don't like hospital food_ and then he remembered the feel of his wand, scalding his hand, creating a permanent imprint on his palm. He would never forget—fifteen years later, the memory made his palm burn and the shame rise again.

Neville recalled, with growing shame, Seamus's expression, how it changed from smugness—"Neville would never do that, Carrow," he'd shouted. "The lad's got too much honor"—to disbelief at the sight of Neville with his wand in his hand, to fear and then to a coldness that Neville was now used to see under his expression whenever they might.

But Seamus's screams… fifteen years later, they still kept him up at night. At first, Seamus had gritted his teeth to stop from making a sound— _I'm not giving him that pleasure,_ Seamus had thought, Neville was sure, though he didn't know who the him was in this case: himself or Carrow. But after the first groan of pain, Seamus's control had snapped, the pain overwhelming him; now, fifteen years later, Neville heard each scream again in the middle of the night, felt it like a punch to his stomach.

He remembered the feeling of separating from his body as he was pointing his wand at one of his best mates; then, it had felt like he wasn't even there, as if the entire thing was some sick film he was watching in Muggle Studies class. He felt separated from the scene, and that allowed him to swallow some of it, like maybe he could hide this memory in the back of his mind, under lock and key, to fade like an old photograph if weathered for long enough.

But the screams. They kept him awake at night.

And the self-disgust, a bitter taste on his tongue. He tasted it whenever he saw Seamus.

Maybe that was what he should write. _Dear Seamus, I'm disgusted with myself. Signed, Neville._ Would that be a sufficient apology? A sufficient explanation?

It was tempting. Neville didn't want to explain how even while he had been pointing his wand at Seamus, channeling all of his hatred at Amycus, at Snape, at the Death Eaters, at You-Know-Who, at Harry, at Bellatrix Lestrange, at Dumbledore, at his parents, at everything, he'd still felt that shameful relief. _At least it isn't me._ He thought this even as he saw the tears in Seamus's eyes.

Seamus would hate to hear that; if he didn't already secretly despise Neville a little for what he did, he certainly would after that.

Alice would be speechless if she heard this. Neville shivered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, thinking of what her expression might be if he were to tell her this story. Somehow, her silence would be more painful than even the memories of Seamus's screams; in her silence, he would hear all the words that she wished to say but would never utter. _Coward. Despicable. Weak._ All the words he'd thought of himself, still heard whenever he looked at Seamus, even now, fifteen years later.

Frank would be disbelieving. He would deny it completely; to him, his father was a perfect idol, incapable of erring. Neville imagined his young son questioning everything he knew of his father then; he imagined Frank looking at him with squinted eyes, his image of his father warping completely. _Who's this man?_ Frank would think. _This isn't my Papa._

Neville set his quill down, staring at the letters on the page. _Dear Seamus, I'm._ He felt the guilt chewing at him now, fifteen years later, as he regarded the letter, trying to think of something profound to say that would convey his guilt and shame, that would earn Seamus's forgiveness, and that would put to a stop to the screams that kept him awake at night. But he could think of nothing that wouldn't reopen the wounds that had been hastily stitched closed fifteen years ago out of necessity and something that wouldn't make his guilt consume him—something that wouldn't make his children look at him as though they didn't know him at all.

He wished he had the courage to say what needed to be said to heal these old wounds once and for all. But it seemed that this courage was finite, that at some point over the years, he'd lost that impressive courage that had led him to pick up Gryffindor's sword and kill Nagini. Perhaps it was right after that moment that he'd used up all of his courage, leaving him with nothing but stories of valor.

So he picked up his quill and wrote neatly, _Dear Seamus, I'm bringing Alice and Frank over tomorrow; they miss their uncles. Would that be okay with you and Dean? Signed, Neville._

Sometimes saying nothing was best.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello! Thanks very much for reading this; I appreciate it. Please let me know what you think :)**


	2. china doll

_You are a plant._

 _Look at you, lying on your bed uselessly, curled up like a baby. You spend your whole day in that bed, staring at the ceiling—if you're not crying that is. In this state, you really aren't much better than a plant. Are you trying to hide from the world? Why? Are you_ afraid _of the world?_ _Since you're a plant, I guess you should be. You're going to get eaten alive, as useless and weak as you are._

 _What was that pathetic whimper? Were you trying to say something? 'I'm not a plant', hmm? Not-plants don't lie in bed crying all day, and they don't sound like dying horses. You do, so you must be a plant._

 _Ah, so you haven't_ completely _lost your backbone. Don't be so offended, though; I'm only saying the truth. You've been like this for the past two months. Staring aimlessly at the ceiling, hardly eating—you've lost so much weight, I can barely see you!—with the curtains closed and the lights turned off. It's like you're trying to fade away. Why? Are you too weak to live anymore? Really? Where's your strength,_ war hero _?_

 _Pfft! You say you still have it, and yet, here you are, lying in your bed like a plant. Even your voice is weak; I can barely hear you. Speak up and clearly too. I did not raise a daughter who whispers; if you're going to whisper, better not say anything at all—that'll save everyone's breath._

 _Well. At least you haven't lost your sarcasm._

* * *

When Cho turned eleven, her mother sat her down on her living room couch. Cho was confused by her mother's somber expression; from the moment she had received her acceptance letter to Hogwarts, she'd been practically walking on air. It seemed inappropriate for her mother to be so serious and yet here she was, with her familiar fear-inducing expression that had Cho scrambling to her seat.

"Now that you are almost a woman," her mother started, "It's time I tell you the story of the Chinese women warriors." Cho stared at her mother with an intrigued expression; the Chinese women warriors? She had taken to reading lots of myths and books, and she had never come across this story. Her mother noticed her confusion, "This is a special story, one that mothers pass onto their daughters when their daughters become women. This story will teach you how to be a warrior and not a slave." Cho felt a rising urgency inside her, pressing her to pay attention; her back straightened and her eyes fixed on her mother's face as she listened with rapt attention to the story.

Once upon a time, when China was ruled by a cruel and lazy emperor, men from the Chinese army found a group of five women in a shed in an abandoned village. The women had been locked in this shed for up to two or three months, and the time without sunlight, ample food, or water had sucked all their strength from them. The lack of sunlight had made their skin pale, hollow; they hissed at even the slightest hint of sunlight, their eyes burning. The lack of food made their faces sunken and their bodies so thin that if they turned to their sides, they seemed to disappear.

They had had no means of escaping; their arms had been tied behind their backs, twisted so they had no hope of freeing them. Their feet had been bound up to five times, forced tighter and smaller, toes squished together with no relief. Their now petite, tiny feet were shaped like the coveted three-inch golden lotuses, a symbol of beauty, but when the women tried to walk, they screamed in pain and teetered and tottered; they were forced to crawl on their hands and knees instead.

The women had also been gagged and forced silent; when they spoke for the first time in these many months, their voices came out scratchy, alien, and incomprehensible. In gagging them, their attackers had not only stolen their voices but their words, reducing them to nonsensical sounds. Now, they had no chance of telling the soldiers what had happened to them or who was responsible.

These women were irreparably broken, and perhaps it would've been wiser to kill them then and there. Their lives promised nothing but more hardship and pain, and it did not seem worth it, as even if they were perfectly healthy, they would still be forced to spend their entire lives on their hands and knees—that was simply the reality of being a woman.

But the women fixed the soldiers with a serious stare. They did not glare, smile, cry, or beg; they simply met the men eye-to-eye, refusing to look away. That look showed what had not been crushed in the two or three months they'd been locked in this shed, what had only grown and hardened. Their eyes held a steel edge, fashioned from their persisting pain and willpower, powerful enough that the soldiers decided to take them to a nearby village where they would be able to work in the fish market. "They will not earn any money," one soldier later explained, "they're just too weak. But if we didn't bring them here, I think they may have actually killed us."

How funny that these women, whose petite and dainty hands now incapable of even holding a string, could strangle a grown man's throat.

* * *

 _You haven't been the same for a while now._

 _No, I'm not just talking about since the end of the war—but that's true. After that battle, you've been a plant, but even before that, I could see that you were broken. I think it was since the year of the Triwizard Tournament when—_

 _Oh, okay. I won't talk about it, if it's only going to make you cry more. I'm rather tired of your tears by now._

 _You know, before that year, you looked pretty when you cried. It's a Chinese thing; we let our tears fall down our faces quietly so they almost melt into our faces. It's like they're not even there. Remember your nana's funeral? All your aunts, cousins, me... we did not make a sound. No ugly sobbing and sniffling. Just silent, invisible tears._

 _Since that year, though, you've been crying ugly non-Chinese tears. You snort sometimes. Your tears stick to your face. It's very unattractive._

 _Darling, put your wand down. There's no reason to get angry with me. I'm just wondering where my daughter went, because I don't know this broken shell she left behind._

* * *

The broken women were taken to the fishing village and given work as washers; with their frailty, there was not much else they could do. Their sensitivity to sunlight forced them to say hidden in the shade, under parasols, where they often seemed to fade into the background. Because their eyes would burn at the slightest hint of light, they were forced to look down at the ground instead. Their weak hands and broken feet forced them to stay in one place.

As broken as they were, though, the women slowly regained their strength. They started first by learning how to speak again, their voices not returning to the quiet, soft, and feminine tones that they had been but becoming overly bold and blunt, shockingly clear and completely unhesitant. They did not let the words they wanted to say linger on their tongues, but shouted them with fierce clarity, so loud villagers across the street could hear their alien voices. They became familiar with the bitter taste of anger; they kept this taste under their tongues, as a constant reminder of the pain they'd suffered. They learned how to voice their revenge as whispers to one another, how to draw strength from each others' voices, murmuring truths under their breaths, the only words they spoke quietly.

Before they could raise their eyes to the sun, the women used their hands to explore the world, their delicate fingers tracing every crevice and curve the world had to offer, whether it was the prickle of a thorn or the soft velvet of a rose petal. From jagged edges to smooth curves, they braved it all, and as a reward, became able to see from their touch. They learned how to listen and feel the earth and piece together the clues to develop a clear picture of the world; when they finally looked up from the ground, their eyes were a secondary sense of sight. Their sight had become so clear that people looked away from them, afraid that the women would be able to see past their skin and bones and see the delicate wireframe of hopes, fears, and secrets that composed them.

The hardest obstacle for them to overcome was their permanently disfigured feet, squished and molded like blocks, so walking was painful. At first, the women were forced to crawl on their hands on knees, but as they became stronger, they started to walk on their hands. Those delicate fingers, incapable of holding onto even a fishing line, now carried them effortlessly. As they grew stronger and learned how to transform their pain to strength, the women transitioned to walking with their feet on the ground—but rather than keeping the soles of their feet flat on the ground, they floated, their feet barely touching the ground between each of their steps. As they started to regain weight and their cheeks flushed with color, passers-by would stop and stare at the sight of these ethereal beauties, practically dancing through the village.

Eventually, the broken women learned too how to ride on horses; though they had grown strong, their permanently bound feet were too slow, so they resorted instead to creatures instead. They mounted their horses in one swift motion, finding that they were able to sit naturally, spreading their legs and straightening their backs. The villagers were appalled at the sight of the women on the horses, seated like men; they called the women inhuman. Their shock increased more when the women started wielding swords, carrying them at their hips like female Chinese soldiers.

They were broken no longer, but they were not the same women who had been thrown into the shed, bound and helpless.

* * *

 _I was just thinking about the first Quidditch game of yours I saw. It was only in a photograph; I couldn't be there in person. But even in that picture, I could see your happiness when you kicked off the ground._

 _Your smile was so big, I thought your face would crack in two. You looked so happy—like you were completely free. And you looked so confident too, so strong—I remember you almost fell off your broom, but you grabbed it tightly and swung yourself back on and laughed the entire time. I almost had a heart attack!_

 _And then you had this look of concentration on your face; your face was so serious, stern, so focused. It scared me a little, that look; you looked like you were a tiger, hunting prey. But I was also so proud._ That's my daughter. _That's what I said to everyone._

 _I kept the picture, you know. It's in my wallet; I was looking at it earlier. I just wanted to remember how free you looked. Then, I thought that you would never be a slave; up in the air, no one could bind your feet and steal your voice._

 _Yet here you are, unable to move or speak._

* * *

"After two years of healing, the woman warriors had regained their strength to the point that they no longer needed to hide in their fishing village anymore," Cho's mother continued.

They had grown strong enough to silence grown men with a look and a single word and could best even the most experienced fishermen in catching fish with their fast, lithe, firm hands, so the women decided to leave the village. They had trained and grown, and were ready to take their revenge on the men who had thrown them into the shed. With their faces painted in white and donning black and red dresses, they mounted their horses and rode off.

On their horses, they rode so fast, they felt like they were flying; the wind whipped through their hair and with each thundering step the horses took, the women felt their hearts beating to the same hammering rhythm. Starting from their old fishing village, they headed northward first; at the first village they stopped, they saw a gang of men trying to force a woman down to her knees. In that woman they saw themselves, so the woman warriors unmounted their horses and beheaded the bastard men, freeing the woman, who looked up at them in her crumpled position on the ground with reverence. The warrior women could see their own hopes and fears, the ones they'd whispered to one another in the quiet moments before sleep, reflected in her eyes, so they helped to her feet and stole some rice from the homes of the men who'd tried to attack her. They gave this rice to her and told her to come join them in a year when she had regained her voice and grown as strong as she could be.

They continued this for months, riding through all of China, bringing a storm on their heels. They attacked the vicious and greedy bastard men who tried to bind women, steal their voices, and throw them into sheds. They broke down the locked doors to sheds, freed the whimpering, bound, and broken women curled up inside, and taught them how to walk on their hands and scream their revenge so loud they shattered the eardrums of any other man who dared approach them. They gained a reputation for being female avengers, for striking terror and revolution wherever they went.

And then, they finally learned where the men who had thrown them into the shed in the first place now lived.

The women, after years of endless pain, had been hardened to any sort of melancholic, weak sentiment; they did not cower in fear at this news, but instead sharpened their swords. This was it, the moment of reckoning—their final acts of revenge. The warrior women travelled for three days to reach the village where the men lived, and in the nights, they slept beside one another, whispering their revenge to one another, letting their hopes, fears, and strength echo in their ears, slide between the bones of their ribcages, and fill the silence between their heartbeats. After those three days and nights, they arrived at the village where the men lived.

They were quiet and expressionless as they walked through the village in search of those men; to avoid being too conspicuous, they'd dressed in soft feminine clothing that seemed to restrict their movement. They'd combed their hair back, not letting it fly in their faces as they had for the past two years, and they walked with petite, female steps, rather than the large manly strides they had grown accustomed to taking. However, they kept their heads up, their eyes forward, blazing with a secret determination. Though they looked like china dolls at the surface, the villagers looked away from their eyes, not wanting to feel them shifting through the messes of their souls, finding their darkest secrets.

The women's eyes searched the village marketplace, looking for their prey—they were not difficult to find. Even from fifty feet away, the women warriors could hear the men's robust fat-man laughter; following the sounds, they found the men sitting on thrones at the end of the marketplace, looking at the other vendors. They were surrounded with food and sacks of gold coins, and they were rotund and lazy and laughed too loudly, trying to drown out the voices of all the others in the village.

When the men saw the women, they raised their eyebrows, exchanged looks, and laughed with identical tones of amusement, surprise, and derision. "What do you want, maggots?" they asked, laughing when one of the woman warriors turned her gaze sharply at him, her lips turning down in a slight frown. One of the men laughed again, teasing, "Oh, don't be so offended—you know the saying, right? 'Girls are maggots in the rice.'"

The warrior women were not offended though. How could they be? Their pain had led them to lose any sense of pride; they had been forced to be humble, and this humility had taught them the patience to keep their hands on their swords, and let their words rise from their throats to their tongues, ready to be released at the right moment. So, they let the men laugh rambunctiously, call them maggots, and look at them with a look of a man who wants to devour a woman, to eat her alive and then spit the pieces back up because she's simply not worthy—but she's pretty, so she must be used.

"What are you doing standing there like that? Go back to the markets, or to your homes and husbands." The men grew agitated when the women did not respond, or burst into tears as they expected, and grew angrier when they continued to meet their gazes. The men despised the lack of self-consciousness, femininity, and softness in their eyes—there was only hardness, nurtured from their pain and stubbornness.

"Well? What are you doing still standing here?" the men demanded, fidgeting in their silver thrones.

"We are here to avenge the women you threw into a shed two years and three months ago," the women declared in their alien voices, "and all the men and women that followed. Your tyranny is over. Surrender now and we will take mercy." They withdrew their swords from behind

The men stared at them with seriousness for a moment, before laughing in amused disbelief. "You! But you are _women_. How can you even hold those swords? Your hands are too weak," they questioned. "We could crush you in a matter of seconds, you're so weak. There's a reason we threw those women into the shed: women are too weak to be of any use. Better to throw them back into the river."

These comments lit a spark of anger in the women warriors' eyes, and they raised their swords. _Too weak? Useless?_ they repeated, their anger enflaming; they charged at the men, releasing a war cry, slicing their heads, slaying the tyrants. as they slayed the bastard men, their anger enflaming them. After, they took the sacks of gold coins and the food that the men had been hoarding and returned it to the people of the village. The villagers stared at the women warriors with clear awe in their eyes, amazed. "Goddesses," they whispered among themselves.

The swordswomen shook their heads, not out of modesty but because this was false. They were not goddesses; they were broken China dolls who picked up their shattered souls and bodies and patched them together in a whole new combination, to create a new sort of woman-not goddesses, but warriors.

* * *

 _Talk. I haven't heard your true voice in months. You used to talk so loud; your voice filled these walls. I'm positive it was the same at Hogwarts, no? You must have been constantly talking, you with your million friends—at least until that year. Now, all I hear are whimpers and whispers from a broken China doll. That's what you are: a China doll that's been dropped and has shattered into a million pieces. I've tried to keep all the pieces together, but only you can patch yourself together._

 _I'm not helping you? I've been sitting here beside for you for the past two months—I've been watching you cry and stare at the ceiling and be unable to speak and move. I've been trying to feed you, to help you go back to sleep when you wake up screaming from nightmares. I have done everything, everything for a woman who's too weak to help yourself._

 _I may not know how you feel, but you don't know how I feel. Every time I look at you, I remember the blood on your arms and your face and no light at all in your eyes. When I saw you after that battle, you were gripping your wand so tightly I thought it would break. I had to pry it out of your hands. And then I had to watch you sleep for so long, I thought you wouldn't ever wake up—and then find a girl who was only a shell of herself when you awoke. And I'm not even going to talk about you after Diggory. How do you think I felt, watching my only daughter shatter to pieces? How I felt, watching that, and being unable to do a single thing? You don't know anything._

 _I feel like I have failed._

 _I thought I taught you to be stronger than this; I thought I taught you how to patch your broken soul together, how to wage war against those hurt you, and how to be a warrior—like the story of the women warriors. Apparently, all I taught you was how to cry._

 _Well?_

 _Aren't you going to say anything?_

* * *

Nearly nine years after her mother told her the story of the women warriors, Cho still did not know what to say. After hearing that story, she'd been amazed— _was this true?_ she asked. _What happened next? Did the women rule over China?_ She begged her mother for more, but her mother smiled her coy, secretive smile and told Cho that she'd tell her when Cho was a little bit older.

Cho was a little bit older now, but she did not need to know the ending.

She imagined that the broken women had gone back to their fishing village after getting their revenge. That they'd taken warrior clothing and removed their make-up. That they'd stared at their reflections and tried to understand who they were now. Flashes of what they'd done, all the blood they'd spilled would flash across their eyes. They had gotten their revenge by beheading those men, certainly, but the pain had still not disappeared. It had grown to be a part of them, eternal in their souls.

Cho imagined them looking at their faces and seeing under the strength to the pain underneath. She imagined them removing their masks of strength to reveal the crying women underneath, whose tears never disappeared—whose tears could not disappear after all the pain they'd suffered, seen, and caused.

Cho wiped away her tears now, sitting up in bed and staring at the empty spot where her mother used to sit.

She didn't need to know the ending of their story—she was living their ending.

* * *

 **A/N:** Firstly, I have to give credit to Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior for the inspiration behind this; I used her memoir as inspiration for the myth of the swordswomen (though this was only mentioned in passing in the second chapter of her book; I added many elements to it). This myth is also partially inspired by the true story of Hua/Fa Mu Lan. The while "you are a plant" aspect is also inspired by The Woman Warrior.

I hope you liked this and that the narrative structure of this made sense; the italics are Cho's mother speaking to her in the present, if it wasn't clear. (If it wasn't, man, this really didn't do its job!)


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